


Breathe

by babykid528



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: 2x05, Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-20
Updated: 2012-07-20
Packaged: 2017-11-10 09:01:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/464534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babykid528/pseuds/babykid528
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Episode tag to 2x05 - "Break Point"</p><p>Harvey's feelings at the end of the episode.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N:** There were too many freaking feels this episode, and I had to jot this down.  
>  Harvey/Donna and Harvey/Mike if you squint.  
> Un-beta'd, so please feel free to point out mistakes. They're all my own and I will gladly correct them.
> 
>  **Warning:** I hope it's obvious, but spoiler alert through 2x05 "Break Point."
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** Suits belongs to Aaron Korsh, USA Network, and Co. I'm just overwhelmed by feels and working them out with their characters.  <3

There are too many thoughts going through Harvey’s head. Too many _feelings_. 

He hates that: the ridiculous tumult of emotion twisting his insides until he realizes he’s holding his breath and desperately in need of air. 

It’s easiest to be angry right now. Easy to point fingers and place blame. Mike doesn’t deserve it. Not really. But it’s comforting for Harvey to single the kid out with a sharp word and equally sharp gaze.

But Mike doesn’t even flinch. Not anymore. Any other day, Mike’s growing confidence in Harvey and in himself would make Harvey proud. But today… it’s apparently too much for Harvey to ask that some things remain reliable, constant.

He waits for Jessica. Sits still in the dark, comforted mildly by the shadows in her surrounding office. When she returns she doesn’t speak, just looks at him. Her gaze is louder than any words she could possibly throw at him in that moment. _It's done._ He tightens his jaw, stands gracefully, straightens his jacket, and leaves her office. 

Harvey walks through the halls and he’s sure he hears whispers, like a swarm of buzzing accusation closing in on him in the too bright halls. He knows, in the one seemingly still rational corner of his brain, that he’s losing it. The glances and gossip are all in his head. No one who wasn’t involved in the inquiry even knows what’s been going on in the office the last few days.

He can’t bring himself to go to his office, so he makes his way to the elevator bay and waits.

It doesn’t take long for Donna to round the corner with a cardboard box in hand.

There are things they could say, things they should say, but they’ve always communicated best without words. So Harvey just looks her in the eye, reads the anger, guilt, regret, betrayal, fear, sadness, _hurt_ … beneath it all, love. And he’s almost amazed to realize, even now, in this moment, how in sync they are. Like reflections.

She steps past him, still watching him, as she enters the elevator. He follows her with his gaze, fingers curling into fists as he keeps himself from stepping forward, going after her. 

His eyes burn as he watches the elevator doors slide shut. He tightens his jaw and spins around after a second of hesitation, because there’s scotch in his office and his favorite Charles Bradley and the Menahan Street Band album, and those two things are necessary right now. So necessary that not even Donna’s vacated desk can keep him away. Staring at it while he drowns his feelings will just be salt in the wound, actually, and Harvey has always been one of those people who pokes at wounds until they don’t hurt or have any emotional hold over him anymore.

He doesn’t expect to find Mike staring back at him as he turns, though. 

Harvey’s so caught off guard that he stops in his tracks, his jaw going slack. This is not something Harvey had wanted Mike to see.

Mike’s eyes aren’t unsympathetic, but they’re less broken than Harvey would have expected them to be. Mike looks disillusioned. Harvey’s seen a lot of emotions on the kid’s face before, there have been plenty of times when Harvey has let him down, but this is different. This is a “so this is what it looks like when you’ve lost” kind of expression. The sympathy is verging on pity and all mixing with so much palpable disappointment that Harvey almost wants to scream at the kid to stop placing everyone he looks up to on a blown glass pedestal when he knows the world they live is unstable and volatile and those delicate structures don’t stand a chance of ever holding up against the wars they’re constantly waging.

Harvey forces himself to drag his eyes away and he starts moving again, back to his office. A few paces behind, Mike follows.

“Not now, Mike,” Harvey’s voice is more hoarse than he’d like it to sound as it reverberates through the halls.

Mike just keeps following him.

Harvey makes a beeline for the liquor cabinet as he enters his office, studiously not glancing in the direction of Donna’s desk. It’s apparently more painful than poking a cut, and he can’t quite face that yet.

Mike goes straight for the records and, without even being told, puts on the right one.

Harvey falters once again as he finishes pouring himself a glass of his best scotch, then grabs another glass and puts two fingers worth of the amber liquid into it for Mike.

He carries both glasses to the couch and passes Mike one. Harvey’s lungs tighten as Mike brushes his fingers across Harvey’s knuckles before taking the offered drink. When Harvey looks into Mike’s eyes again, there’s a renewed sense of faith there, undercut with something that looks oddly like support. Harvey sits beside him on the leather, he keeps his back to everything that isn’t Mike, and for a moment, he just breathes. It’s almost a sigh, tinged with an odd sense of relief.

Mike’s silence is a gift Harvey doesn’t quite deserve, but he clings to it.


End file.
